DYNAMIC SIMULATION OF ELECTRICAL SUBMERSIBLE PUMPS IN DIFFERENT ARRANGEMENTS

• Grant number: 21/12736-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2022
• End date: December 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Mechanical Engineering - Transport Phenomena
• Agreement: Equinor (former Statoil)
• Principal Investigator: Alberto Luiz Serpa
• Grantee: Thiago Alexandre Moreti
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica (FEM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Company: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica (FEM)
• Associated research grant: 17/15736-3 - Engineering Research Centre in Reservoir and Production Management, AP.PCPE

Abstract

The proper operation of electrical submersible centrifugal pumps in complex flows suchas those involving gas-liquid and liquid-liquid is essential in petroleum artificialelevation to ensure adequate process efficiency. It is also vital to identify changes in thesystem behavior to plan maintenance and suitable operating conditions obtaining goodlevels of reliability and profitable production.This Scientific Initiation project (undergraduate student) involves simulating somearrangements of pumps, for example, pumps in parallel and series, to understand themain effects in the system response. Some operational parameters such as rotation,flow, pressure variation, and flow properties will be considered in the simulations. Thecharacteristics of each pump will be considered as input information, and the focus hereis in simulations of different arrangements using the respective simplified model of eachpump, connecting them using software such as Matlab, Octave, or others.The centrifugal pumps used in this artificial elevation process have their primarycharacteristic performance determined by the manufacturer using water as a workingfluid. In the case of more complex flows (water, oil, and gas), the operating conditionsof the pump change significantly. The effects of one individual component in the othersare the main interest here, evaluating pressure and flow dynamic oscillations that areimportant for the overall pumping process. Considerations about some complex effectsand simplified models are essential aspects to be considered here.The expected results of this project are a better understanding of the effects ofconnecting pumping in different configurations and introducing the student to the fieldof dynamic systems simulation.